AEDES pula mengancam manusia..

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Couple of years ago, my house had problem with mosquitoes. You see, my neighbour decided to stop maintaining his backyard and consequence to that, his backyard became a jungle!

At that time, we had tenants staying in the annexure of our house. The annexure faced the so-called “jungle”. Couple with the fact that my garden is pretty huge, we had mosquitoes all around our house!

Subsequently, one of my tenants caught dengue fever. She started having fever but she kept quiet about it – probably thinking that it was normal fever. Fortunately, we spotted red rashes on her arms and quickly sent her to a hospital. She was diagnosed with last stage dengue fever! Fortunately, after being hospitalized for a week, she made full recovery thereafter. If we didn’t see the red rashes, our tenant would probably be dead. Carrying a dead body out from my house is the last thing I want to do. Uhhh

Dengue fever is very common in Malaysia. I know a nurse whose young daughter died of dengue fever. Before her death, the nurse’s husband went missing and could not be found. What a sad life.

It is important to know the symptoms of dengue fever. According to expat.com.my, the symptoms are as follow:-

The signs and symptoms of Dengue fever are as follows:

– High fever (104 F, 40°C)

– Chills

– Headache

– Red eyes, pain in the eyes

– Enlarged lymph nodes

– Deep muscle and joint pains (during first hours of illness)

– Loss of appetite

– Nausea and vomiting

– Low blood pressure and heart rate

– Extreme fatigue

Basically, dengue commences with high fever and other signs as listed above for 2 to 4 days. Then, the temperature drops rapidly and intense sweating takes place. After about a day with normal temperature and a feeling of well-being, the temperature rises abruptly again. Rashes (small red bumps) show up on the arms, legs and the entire body simultaneously along with fever. However, rashes rarely occur on the face. The palms of the hands and soles of the feet may be swollen and bright red. Although the patient may feel exhausted for several weeks, most cases of dengue take approximately one week to recover. Once a person recovers from dengue, he or she will have antibodies in their bloodstream which will prevent them from having a relapse for about a year.

Prevention is better than cure. If you have a garden or some containers lying around, you may want to follow the guidelines provided by Singapore National Environment Agency (NEA)

At all times

– Turn pails and watering cans over.

– Remove water in plant pot plates. Clean and scrub the plate thoroughly to remove mosquito eggs. Avoid the use of plant pot plates, if possible.

– Loosen soil from potted plants to prevent the accumulation of stagnant water on the surface of the hardened soil.

– Do not block the flow of water in scupper drains along common corridors. Avoid placing potted plants and other paraphernalia over the scupper drains.

– Cover rarely used gully traps. Replace the gully trap with non-perforated ones and install anti-mosquito valves.

– Cover bamboo pole holders after use. Rainwater can potentially accumulate in these bamboo pole holders if they are uncovered and create a habitat.

– Remove air-conditioner trays as the condensate could accumulate on them, which present an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. Instead, redirect the condensate to bathrooms or toilets.

Every other day

Change water in flower vases. Clean and scrub the inner sides of vases. Wash roots of flowers and plants thoroughly as mosquito eggs can stick to them easily.

Once a week

Clear fallen leaves and stagnant water in your scupper drains and garden. These leaves collect water or cause chokages to the drains thus resulting in the buildup of stagnant water.

Once a month

– Add prescribed amounts of sand granular insecticide into vases, gully traps and roof gutters, even if they are dry.

– Clear away fallen leaves in roof gutters and apron drains. If structurally feasible, remove the roof gutters.

Alternatively, beat the sh*t out of them when you see one!

Check out http://www.gayahidupsihat.my for more information!

Veranda Resort and Spa, Chiang Mai

The conference organisers put us in this RM500 per night hotel located at the outskirts of Chiang Mai.

The place was incredible. Beautiful, spacious and filled with greens. It has a panoramic view of a jungle and mountains. So incredible that it deserves a blogpost on this blog!


The bar is just next to the pool. Some of my friends decided to swim in their undies after a few drinks.


The room comes with a massive bathtub. It reminds me of an Egyptian mummy’s tomb.


Everyday around 530pm, the hotel will send us some desserts to warm our palates before dinner.

The only problem with this place is it is quite far from the city. It takes about half an hour to get there. The other problem is the mosquitoes. We usually have dinner in the hut and drinks thereafter. Many of my friends became mosquitoes’ dinner. Wearing long pants is highly recommended at night.

Website: http://www.verandaresortandspa.com/chiangmai/

Nimmanhaemin Road Food Guide

Wawee Coffee

Since I only slept an hour before my flight, I was dying to have coffee. We stopped by Wawee Coffee for their Wawee Coffee. It was thick and aromatic. Fueled me to walk around this place for hours.

Address
Nimmanhaemin Soi 9

Nimmanhaemin Road Ice Cream

The highlight of Nimmanhaemin Road to me is probably is home made ice cream by Home Fresh. Their ice cream is sold at a house. You need to ring the doorbell for service.


Jack @ #277, Nimmanhaemin Soi 5 (B2)

It has numerous unique flavours such as mango sticky rice, pandamus with young coconut, toddy palm and red ruby. I went with mango sticky rice and I must say it was good. Never I had rice in my ice cream before! The texture is a little hard but you have to wait for it to melt a little to enjoy it.

Address
#277, Nimmanhaemin Soi 5 (B2)

Khun Mor

Lunch at Nimmanhaemin Road was at Khun Mor’s Cuisine, a place recommended by a guide book.


I ordered Pad Thai. It was good save for the bloody bean sprouts. I hate them.


Jack ordered Khao Soi Kai which is Chiang Mai’s signature dish. It comes with deep fried egg noodles, chicken, pickled cabbage and lime. It taste like curry laksa to me.


As a side dish, we had Sai Aour, which looks like their well known dish. You can even buy a packet of it to cook at home. Sai Aour is basically spicy sausage. Taste good.

Address
10/1, Nimmanhaemin Road

Nimmanhaemin Road, Chiang Mai

On our first day, we had couple of hours to kill before the start of the conference. Instead of sleeping, we got our hotel to drop us at Niammanhaemin Road.

This place is filled with trendy pubs, cafes and boutiques. Filled with is an understatement. The whole place is packed with them!


Each road has a list of the shops

The facade and interior designs of these places are very well designed. So good that it makes you think that whatever that they are selling are good too.

One of the nicest shops I went was Silverbirch, a shop selling wooden carving. The entire shop is dedicated to selling miniature wood carving which are mostly pigs.


Jack bought a few pigs with letters and had the shop glued them together to from a word.


This place has a few stand alone premises with different stores. Interesting concept.

The only problem with this place is that they don’t have many boutiques that cater men. I wanted to get some local designer’s stuff but unfortunately, I couldn’t find many shops that cater men!

In any event, this place is a good place for photography. I’ll definitely come back again.

Buddy Up and be rewarded with amazing trips!

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Although we left school more than 10 years ago, my high school buddies and I still hang out together. Some of them have left the Malaysia and settled overseas. Three of them have settled down in Australia namely in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

Nevertheless, we still keep in touch and we will all hang out when they are back. Whenever they are back, we would make a road trip. Our last trip was to Pulau Tioman. We spent quite a lot of time sight seeing.

Went swimming. My buddies tried to merge themselves into a boat for my other buddy to ride on -_-

To travel around Pulau Tioman. 12 of us cramped in a van with deflated tyres -_-


We played futsal in the evening.

And night time, drinking!

However, getting there was terrible. We missed our ferry and somehow got some strangers to send us to Pulau Tioman using a fisherman’s boat.


This wooden boat had no toilet. The sea was choppy and we got seasick halfway. When we arrived at Pulau Tioman, the boatman dropped us on the wrong jetty and he decided to abandon us at the jetty! We found some fisherman to send us to the hotel jetty.


It was a terrible 8 hours ordeal -_-

But the trip was well worth it. We rarely get to hangout due to our locations and busy schedules.

If I am rich, I would sponsor all my buddies for a road trip to Australia to meet up with our other buddies staying in Australia! No more fisherman’s boat!

Perhaps I should get Great Eastern to help me. Great Eastern is celebrating its 103rd anniversary and they’re giving away cash and trips worth more than RM55,000.

All I need to do is sign up, create a wishlist and invite my friends to Buddy Up with me. If I have the most friends who Buddy Up with me, I will be rewarded with fantastic trips of my choice! I get to bring 3 of my friends along. Check out the prizes below! The Grand Prize is worth RM 16,000!


Other than the above prizes, there will be weekly winners. The top participant with the most friends who Buddy Up with him/her in a particular week gets rewarded with cash! And the cash amount goes up week after week!!


You have until 4 December 2011 to invite friends to Buddy Up with you. Who knows, that theme park holiday to Disneyland, Hong Kong or to Gold Cost, Australia might just be yours. Good luck!

Visit www.Lifeisgreat.com.my to join!

So, you passed your CLP. Now, what?

Last year, I wrote wrote an entry guiding law students on the Malaysian Legal Profession. The title was “Students’ Guide to Malaysian Legal Profession“. Few days ago, the results for Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP), the qualifying examination that all foreign law graduates must take before they can be legally qualify in Malaysia, was released. I thought it would be timely to reproduce the article again but this time at Malaysia’s leading bLawg, Loyarburok. Here’s the reproduction of the article.

So, you passed your CLP. Now, what?

Congratulations to those who had passed their Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP). A lifetime of joy and misery await you. If you decide to practice, I am sure some of you would wonder where is the best place to go. I hope this article will assist those in doubt.

When a student is qualified to start his pupillage, he has 3 choices to proceed moving forward, namely a large, medium or small law firm. There is no exact definition as to what amounts to a large, medium or small law firm. But based on my own view, a large firm has around 20 lawyers, medium sized firm has less than 20 lawyers whereas small law firm has 5 or less lawyers.

A chambering student’s allowance would range from RM800 to RM2500. A large firm generally pays higher allowance.

Generally, large and medium firms (let’s call them larger firms) can expose a student to various types of work. Most of the larger firms have separate departments where a student will be expose to matters relating to corporate, conveyancing, litigation, intellectual property, employment etc. Some larger firms have a rotation system where a student will be rotated to different departments. Also, larger firms generally pay more. When I was chambering, my allowance was RM1,500.00. My friends in the smaller firms were getting RM800.00 – RM1,000.00.

A small firm may not expose a student to many types of work. However, some small firms are boutique firms which specializes in certain areas of law. For example, there are some law firms in Kuala Lumpur which specializes in Intellectual Property. They are very reputable and highly recognised in the Intellectual Property industry. They also have the best clients and the best work. With this, joining a smaller firm does not mean a student will learn lesser things.

Also, in a small firm, a student may be able to handle files on their own (most of the time under a partner’s supervision). A student will most like also get to shadow the partner.

In larger firms, it will take time for a student to be able to handle files of their own. A student usually starts off with menial work (e.g research, translation). Substantive work will probably come at a later stage. A student in a large firm may find themselves doing less important work than their comtemporaries in a smaller firms.

Also, in a smaller firm, a student may be given more opportunity. When I was an attachment student in a small firm, the bosses decided to send me to Japan for an assignment. This may not happen if I had been attached in a larger firm!

Free Trip to Tokyo. Source from http://xes.cx/?p=4450

When I wanted to look for a place for pupillage, I couldn’t decide as to whether to join a larger firm or go back to the small firm for my pupillage. I emailed a family friend and asked him where to go.

He advised me to join a larger firm so as to take advantage of the networking opportunities. Initially, I did not understand what he meant by “networking opportunities”, but after a few years, I began to understand.

In a larger firm, a student will get to know many people. In the legal profession and as a basic business principle to make money, it is not “what you know”, it is “who you know”. Of course, legal knowledge is very important but if you do not have the necessary connections, the legal knowledge will be not utilized. There will be no food on your table if you do not have the necessary connections to bring in business.

A student’s friends and colleagues may eventually become legal advisers in companies, businessmen, directors and even politicians. They may become your source of referral for businesses in the future.

But this doesn’t mean that a small firm would lose out in business. There are of course many ways to get business. For example, be active in Bar activities, give talks, join associations etc and recently, through social media networking.

If a student finds that pupillage in a larger firm / small firm is not his cup of tea, he may always switch.

Once a student finishes his or her pupillage, he may or may not be retained in his firm as a legal assistant/associate (different title but same position). A first-year legal assistant/associate’s salary in Kuala Lumpur firms may range from RM2,000.00 to RM4,000.00.

Lastly, if you aim to have lifetime career as a lawyer, you should always aim for partnership or alternatively, set up your own firm (as a sole proprietor or a partnership). A partnership in a larger firm may take a longer time as most of the time, there are many people ahead of you. Even if you are made partner, it will take time to be an equity partner (a partner with shares of the firm, thus gets a share of the profits). Most of the time, young partners in a larger firm are only salaried partners. It will take time to be an equity partner. However, such situation in a small firm may vary. Some small firms are known not to take new partners.

I hope the above is of assistance. If you have any comments that are helpful, please share.

Multilaw Academy 2011 @ Chiang Mai

Multilaw is an association of independent law firms around the world.

My firm sent my colleague, Jack and me to Chiang Mai for this week long training. The training given was fairly simple but focused on interesting topics. But most importantly, it was an academy for all junior lawyers from all Multilaw members.


Infinity pool @ Verandah Hotel!

We were put in a very nice hotel by the name Verandah Resort and Spa. I will talk about this place on a separate entry.

The week long conference was very memorable. Our day would start with a class by Multilaw senior lawyers. Our night would start with dinner and end with heavy drinking – everyday!

The participants were mostly young lawyers ranging from mid 20s to early 30s. We had lawyers from Brazil, Netherlands, Philippines, China, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Canada, Turkey, Denmark, Ethiopia and Poland. Every night we will stay back for drinks after dinner. It was a good mix of people. We all got along really well and had loads of fun. I don’t think there was a day which we didn’t drink.


The participants and trainers. I’m the tallest one. Stand out, don’t blend in!

In respect of the training, there were two things that I remember the most. The first is the mock negotiation. We were split into groups and given a scenario. The scenario relates to a share purchase agreement. We were given instructions from our mock clients and then we have to negotiate a deal between the two groups. I partnered a Dutch and we were tasked to negotiate with a Dane and Filipino. It was tough but fun! I learned so much!


Training in progress

The second training was on what an in-house lawyer wants from his lawyer. Multilaw invited an in-house counsel from a large multinational company to speak. It was highly informative. For the benefit of my readers, I’ve summarized some of the points given by the counsel:-

1. Get law firm partners’ and associates’ comprehensive details on firm website. In-house lawyers always look at them.
2. Put pictures of partners and associates in a presentable manner. Not too casual.
3. Details of associates in the website should include a capability list.
4. Get into Chambers Guide (law firm ranking guide) if possible.
5. Lawyers should specialize. In-house lawyers always look for experts.
6. Once engaged by a company, ask in-house counsel on what do they dislike from a lawyer and try to avoid doing that.
7. Always understand and read about the client. Sign up with Google Alerts for daily updates on client.
8. When meeting clients, don’t start rambling about yourself. Ask open ended questions like what their views are and how we can help them
9. Ask the client how they like to be contacted. Eg phone, email. Some clients like to speak on phone and some like emails.
10. Be known to be giving a lot of value. Tell client that you are not charging for certain work.
11. Billing is an art. Only bill things that are of value. Don’t bill for things like looking for phone number or files.
12. Be known to be responsive. Always reply queries immediately. Get back to people promptly.
13. On emails, not necessary to give answers immediately but respond with some pseudo substance response eg I’ll get back to you tomorrow

We were given a one day tour around Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to see many things. We went to the night market and find that most of the stuff sucks. And as usual, we ended up drinking at a pub.


Our hot Turkish lawyer. She doesn’t drink beer. She only drinks tequila.


We had dinner at one restaurant that allows its customers to draw on its walls. We had all our names written on the wall.

We ended our academy with dinner at a nice place called the House. Jack and I sat with the guys. It’s been a while since I had so much fun.


At the dinner

After the dinner, we headed to Mandarin Oriental for drinks.


Mandarin Oriental. Yes, Mandarin Oriental. No kidding!

We ended our night around 2am. By then, all of us were dead tired and many had to rush back to their hotel room to pack for their early flight. Jack and I slept only an hour to catch our 9am flight.

The gang shook hands and hugged before departing. Although it was only 7 days, everyone bonded very well. It was kinda sad to see the academy ending. There may not be a time where all of us would be together again.

Nevertheless, in order for us to keep in touch, I started a Facebook group. Almost everyone that attended are now on that group.

It was a great experience. I hope the new found friendship will last until the end of our lives.